Notre Dame vs. Yale

<p>Of course. But none of those rankings are research lists.</p>

<p>Fulbright Scholarships should not be used as an indicator.....My son who is a Junior was asked by his school to complete the application and he decided a Fulbright does not match his career goals..perhaps other schools have students simliar to my son, do not have the time and energy to fill out another application....I noticed his school is not on the Fullbright list but has been ranked in the top 5 of USNEWS for several years...</p>

<p>posterX is a troll. search for his last five most recent entries. he scours this website for opportunities to boost yale at the expense of every other university</p>

<p>Looking at Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships kind of downplay our excellent business school, don't they? That doesn't seem like a great ranking methodology to me at least. Also, there are a lot of factors about ND which can't be ranked, such as how happy the students are and how successful they are after ND.</p>

<p>As for your rankings, it sounds like you are looking at rankings that are including graduate programs which makes no sense because we are talking about UNDERGRADUATE. When I decided to come to ND I didn't care how strong the grad programs are...and I still don't. Again, having strong grad programs can actually HURT undergrad education because professors focus more on the grad students than undergrads and there are fewer research opportunities for grad students. Here, many professors will tell you that they prefer working with undergraduates, and that is part of the reason that undergraduates have so many research options. I myself was awarded a grant to do research here...there are a lot of graduate students who can't say that!</p>

<p>This discussion is about undergraduate education, and hence I personally am going to ignore (other than pointing it out) anything that is based on anything but undergraduate, because it is simply superfluous. I put these world rankings in that category because it has, according to you, Yale and ND with approximately equal enrollments which tells me they are looking at graduate schools as well and that is beyond our scope.</p>

<p>Also, I am going to stress this one more time, at Yale the graduate students probably will get most of your professors' attention as well as most of the research opportunities. You probably won't be able to run your senior thesis in a lab for a semester like I did here. If you are looking at doing any kind of research, you should look into what undergrads are able to do and what the opportunities are. Yale may have great opportunities for grad students (and they do, it is an amazing school) but I would worry about undergrad playing second fiddle.</p>

<p>I wouldn't worry about that, irish, considering that Yale alumni get into the top graduate Ph.D. and other programs at a rate higher than that of any other university in America, in every field --- and at much higher rates than those of Notre Dame. Perhaps the most prestigious sign of getting into any grad program you want, the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, is just one example of that, and Yale's placement of several of its undergraduates each year as Rhodes Scholars, when there are only 32 awarded each year across the entire country, is the envy of the nation. Notre Dame has one scholar every five years if it is very lucky. Also, I would consider things such as the fact that Yale has the smallest undergraduate class sizes of any university in America, and, particularly in the most popular majors, by far the lowest student to faculty ratios of anywhere except Caltech. In the Princeton Review rankings, Yale was recently ranked the #1 "Best Overall Undergraduate Academic Experience" in the country, above many tiny liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore; while world-famous newspaper columnist David Brooks, a UChicago alumnus, has recently written an article in the Washington Monthly explaining why Yale "provides the best undergraduate experience in America."</p>

<p>Posterx did you get rejected from ND or something?</p>

<p>No, I think Notre Dame is a fine school. I personally know many alums, some very well. But to be honest, come to think of it, I am 100% sure that they would be the first to tell you to go to Yale if you got in.</p>

<p>Are you a current student or alum of Yale then?</p>

<p>danbrenn,</p>

<p>i have nothing against notre dame...nor "irish catholics"...i'm catholic after all. i just expressed my personal view that if I were choosing between notre dame and yale...i'd choose yale. how does that make me hate notre dame?</p>

<p>If the OP had said notre dame or rutgers i would have said notre dame. if the OP had said Notre Dame or UCLA I would have said "whichever one you think is prettier or like more." But I think Yale is a better school than Notre Dame...and so do plenty of other people.</p>

<p>I agree that if you are looking at academics Yale is better than Notre Dame, but it just seems silly to come on the Notre Dame forum and put it down over and over agian.</p>

<p>show me where i put notre dame down.</p>

<p>Alright, that was mainly directed towards posterx, my apologies.</p>

<p>Notre Dame beats the crap out of UCLA any day...</p>

<p>And PosterX, you sure talk about Yale alot...I mean its good, but then why is Princeton and Harvard considered better?</p>

<p>They aren't considered "better", as many of the posts above show.</p>

<p>posterx are you at Yale now?</p>

<p>
[quote]
I wouldn't worry about that, irish, considering that Yale alumni get into the top graduate Ph.D. and other programs at a rate higher than that of any other university in America, in every field--- and at much higher rates than those of Notre Dame

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</p>

<p>What evidence of that do you have? I at least have gone through getting into graduate school and was quite successful. Do you have any evidence at all to back up this claim?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Best Overall Undergraduate Academic Experience" in the country, above many tiny liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore; while world-famous newspaper columnist David Brooks, a UChicago alumnus, has recently written an article in the Washington Monthly explaining why Yale "provides the best undergraduate experience in America."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think that generalizations like that are kind of BS honestly. Yale is a great school, no doubt, but it depends on what you are looking for. I WOULD HATE YALE, and it is nothing against them, but I would hate it. It depends on what is best for that individual, like I have been arguing the whole time. You can't say generically that it is the best college experience, IMO. It may be the best for a certain group of people, but not for everyone.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I agree that if you are looking at academics Yale is better than Notre Dame, but it just seems silly to come on the Notre Dame forum and put it down over and over agian.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Agreed to an extent, but then again the OP should hear from both sides. If they were all over our board, I would be more concerned. This I think is just important discussion that will hopefully help the OP make the best decision for them.</p>

<p>Open minded, aren't you, generalizing about a school experience that you haven't yourself experienced? I am just pointing out the facts, of which there are many available. Let's leave it at that.</p>

<p>PosterX, loyalty can be measured in ways other than money- if possible, I would challenge you with the percentage of legacies that apply to ND- I guarantee that more kids born to ND alums end up applying than Yale alums. ND is a family- Yale, not so much. Don't get me wrong, Yale is a phenomenal school. If the OP is really looking for a close knit, CATHOLIC environment, it's nearly impossible to beat Notre Dame. </p>

<p>Also, in terms of academics, ND and Yale are similar but not equal- however, they are not anywhere near 200 rankings apart. Just lay off with the rankings already.</p>

<p>The highly-regarded Jiaotong world university and Newsweek rankings disagree with you, but I will let people draw conclusions from them as they will. Being in the top 300 isn't that bad, you know -- there are many great universities in this world. It's nothing to be ashamed of if you are ranked below the University of Buenos Aires in overall academic quality/impact. This is a planet of 6 billion and being in the top 300 is a very, very rare honor.</p>

<p>You are absolutely correct that loyalty can be measured in many ways, of course -- I just think it would be absurd to claim that Yale is not a "family" (Yale College's most famous tagline is "at once a tradition, a company of scholars, a society of friends") or that Yale alumni are less loyal to their school, given the available information about the extent to which Yale alumni, and those of similar places (Harvard alumni, and Princeton alumni), network with one another, return for reunions and contribute regularly to their alma maters. Yale's reunion attendance rates are significantly higher than most of its "peer" schools.</p>

<p>Look carefully at the top leadership of any business or government department and you'll see some of this at work. I think there is a reason that, in Susan Caminiti's "Where the CEOs went to [undergrad] College" article in Fortune Magazine, Yale was ranked #1 at producing CEOs, followed at a distance by Princeton, while schools like ND were not among the top ten. It's not just because Yale and Princeton have the smartest students flocking to their shores, it's because many of their graduates take advantage of extremely powerful and close-knit alumni networks.</p>

<p>This is not just true of the schools as a whole, but also of their extremely well-funded organizations such as the Catholic Chapels and Centers (I believe the Catholic center at Yale just got a new $25,000,000 student activity center taking up almost an entire block next to the campus and chapel), the Jewish Life Centers, the African-American Centers, the Korean church groups, the volunteer/social service groups and all the other "families" on the campuses. Those organizations all keep active mailing lists and invite their alumni back to campus on a regular basis.</p>

<p>Give me a break. Those rankings are crap and you know it. Like the University of Bueno Aires is better than Notre Dame.</p>